Micro 4/3 Showcase Olympus 14-150 f4-5.6 II ED Lens

Hume Lake from Panoramic Point, King's Canyon N.P.
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My copy of this lens arrived today.... so I wandered out with the hound for a walk in the woods. It wasn't a great day for photography as the sun was bright and the shadows harsh... so there's not many landscape style shots, more detail shots. These are just some pictures I grabbed for demo purposes.

To keep it as a demo of what the lens can do I've not cropped the photo's at all, and I've kept to minimal processing in Lightroom. There's no masking or cloning out, just mimimal HSL stuff, a smidge of colour grading on a few of them, a vignette where appropriate and a 98% scaling border from the transform section.

This post contains focal lengths from 14-40mm...

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Mine was sold a while back, but here’s some further cause for regret (although it seems I need either something a little longer or a 150mm f/5.6 prime 😂)…

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This post is for information... it's not a good photo as such, but it works well to illustrate the strengths of this lens.

This farmhouse was 750m away... or a smidge over half a mile, and the lens was at 150mm.
The first pic is full, the second is a 50% crop (i.e. half width and hight, so 25% of the image) and the third pic is a 100% crop (i.e. 10% of the image). The fourth pic is 10%, but the very bottom-left of the image for corner sharpness.

My verdict.... this lens is far better than I could've hoped for. It's size, weight, image quality and price means that the 12-100mm f/4 PRO is no longer a temptation for me.

Full image:
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25% of the image:
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10% of the image:
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10% corner crop:
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Well, I just bought the second, weather sealed version of this lens for an upcoming 2 month overseas trip. With what I've seen on my own casual shots, and looking at the images here, I see no reason to regret my decision to bring it to Laos as my primary outdoor lens. With the X113 and the tiny Olympus 45 f1.8, I think I will be covered. (The 45mm doesn't get as much use since I got the 12-40 f2.8, but the later just can't compete in terms of weight and size, which is a pressing concern on this trip. Glad I found this thread and thanks to everyone for all the great images,
 
This lens lives on my e-m5.3, as it did on the e-m5.2 before that. While I can’t claim it matches a 12-100mm pro in terms of IQ, I like it for the light weight, lower price, and longer reach. If I want to travel light, it’s this and the P20mm f/1.7 or O25mm f/1.8, done!

Here is a sample at 150mm from this morning in the “Today” thread:

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A couple of tests from raw files. Raw gives me a bit more from the 14-150 files ( or any shot). The picture of my dog, Ellie, was shot at iso 10000, giving the lie to the idea that m43 cannot be used at higher iso. And this is a first generation E-M5. It doesn't match my Sony full frame, but it is certainly not unusable.
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I have found the various Olympus kit lenses I've picked up along the way to be of very acceptable quality and IQ. Often as good as high grade lenses on larger sensored cameras, or better ... !

I do not count my FTs 14-54 MkII or my 12-50 macro as "kit lenses", even though both came with the E-30 and E-M1 MkI as a kit, respectively.

While the kit lenses are not in the same class as say, my FTs 7-14, 11-22, 14-54 MkII or 50-200 MkI, or my mFTs 8-25, 12-50, 12-100, they have been used to take some quite stunning photos (IMHO). Some of the best photos I have ever taken in a photographic life of some 63 years, using all sorts of cameras up to 5x4" format. I have printed a number of these at A2 size (17x22 inches) on my Epson R3880.

While I've never owned one, the 14-150 MkII seems to be "good enough" for many shots, and very versatile, like the 12-50 macro. A (relatively) cheap, WR general purpose lens that doesn't cost a kidney. A noticeably better IQ than the FTs 18-180, which was occasionally OK, but often unacceptable.

A quick review by Imaging Resources here:

 
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